Movies that had Great Initial Success and, then, Chirp, Chirp, Chirp

[LizzieMaine]

For a long time the definitive screen Jesus was H. B. Warner, who played the part in DeMille's silent "King of Kings" in 1927 -- a film which was still widely distributed on 16mm for church-basement showings well into the 1950s. Warner was not a muscular athletic type, nor was he in any way Semitic, but he did have the long, thin features that matched the common dime-store chromos of Jesus that hung on many living room walls in the twenties and before -- for better or worse, this was the visualization of Jesus that came to most peoples' minds at the time.

It was the definitive role of Warner's career for a very long time. But now, if he's remembered at all, it's for this role:

Yep, good old alcoholic druggist Mr. Gower was the screen's best-known Jesus. What audiences of 1947 must have thought when they saw this particular actor cast in this particular role suggests that Mr. Capra was being deliberately provocative when casting him.

 

[Worf]

I agree on several films here.

"Ordinary People"
"Kramer vs. Kramer"
Both made when divorce was rampant and while widely acclaimed and viewed by me at the time have not aged well.

"Saturday Night Fever"
Critical and financial success but terrible tripe when viewed with un-fogged eyes. Any film made in response to a "fad" generally winds up in this category.

"The English Patient"
This film is right in my wheel house. WWII history, romance, action..... Rewatch material????? Enh....

Just a few off'n the top of my head.

Worf

 

[David Conwill]

It seems as though the Andy Hardy films were all cultural icons for their time that have been almost completely forgotten today.

 

[Doctor Strange]

It was the definitive role of Warner's career for a very long time. But now, if he's remembered at all, it's for this role:

Yep, good old alcoholic druggist Mr. Gower was the screen's best-known Jesus. What audiences of 1947 must have thought when they saw this particular actor cast in this particular role suggests that Mr. Capra was being deliberately provocative when casting him.

H.B. Warner was a favorite of Capra's. He'd already cast him in Lost Horizon, You Can't Take It With You, and Mr. Smith Goes To Washington before the war.

(I didn't mention him earlier because the silent King of Kings is barely remembered these days - by anyone but hardcore film history types like us!)

 

[SurfGent]

 

[Fading Fast]

I agree on several films here.

"Ordinary People"
"Kramer vs. Kramer"
Both made when divorce was rampant and while widely acclaimed and viewed by me at the time have not aged well.

"Saturday Night Fever"
Critical and financial success but terrible tripe when viewed with un-fogged eyes. Any film made in response to a "fad" generally winds up in this category.

"The English Patient"
This film is right in my wheel house. WWII history, romance, action..... Rewatch material????? Enh....

Just a few off'n the top of my head.

Worf

Good one with "Saturday Night Fever," that thing was ridiculously successful and, IMHO, all but unwatchable today. The sequel is another one in that it was commercially successful (though not critically) when it came out and is also unwatchable - except as a joke - today. And to the point of the thread - both of these are rarely seen and rarely talked about.

I've watched "The English Patient" several times since it came out as, like you, it's right in my wheelhouse and I enjoy it each time, but that's just me. You are correct that it had huge acclaim when it came out and now hardly ever gets a mention.

Um, Worf, I don't want to be the one to say it, but you have some homework over in the "Last TV Show You Watched" thread related to "The Night Of" that I don't believe you've completed.

 

[Benzadmiral]

Edward writes, "(every Superman actor since is inevitably compared to the late Christopher Reeve)." True, though prior to his first outing as the Man of Steel, our contemporaries (mine, anyway) insisted, "Nobody could be better than George Reeves!"

Edward, in regard to Woody Allen's movies descending into cricket territory: ". . . a lot of that has to do with popular perceptions and gossip about Allen's colourful private life. I know a lot of folks simply won't touch his ouevre for that very reason. Oddly enough, despite an actual conviction (before he skipped the US while on bail), Roman Polanski doesn't seem to attract the same level of vitriol. Less well known now, I suppose."

It's also that Woody has been the visible face of nearly all his films until recently. He's either the central character or a featured one in nearly all his movies -- so even casual moviegoers know him. In contrast, Polanski has only had small roles, generally speaking, in films, never (I think?) as a central character. So the average moviegoer, who never pays attention to the director of a film, has nothing to picture. If you asked your average moviegoer aged 45 and up who directed Rosemary's Baby, he would probably have no idea, or would answer "Alfred Hitchcock" -- another highly visible director. (Under 45, said moviegoer would probably look clueless, or say, "I don't like rom-coms.")

 

[Benzadmiral]

Good one with "Saturday Night Fever," that thing was ridiculously successful and, IMHO, all but unwatchable today. The sequel is another one in that it was commercially successful (though not critically) when it came out and is also unwatchable - except as a joke - today. And to the point of the thread - both of these are rarely seen and rarely talked about. . . .

I dunno. Thanks to Travolta's continuing or renascent fame, the first film gets mentioned a bit. It's not unwatchable to me, as it's not a musical comedy -- it's a drama, a "working-class kid with aspirations to be something special" story, with music as just part of it. I was surprised when I first saw it that he used the same accent (his own, I think?) in it as he did as Vinnie Barbarino in Kotter, though of course that accent fitted both characters. I agree that most moviegoers might think SNF quaint if not goofy.

The second film I've never seen, and am not curious about.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Allen is still hugely popular here -- every film of his that we get draws very well, and has for the eleven years I've been working here. We have a large contingent of his traditional core audience of New York baby boomers who live in this area, and they all turn out for any picture that his name on it. Every August or September he has one out, and every year they come to see it.

His early films, for my money, are his best. "Take The Money and Run" is still one of the most flat-footedly funny pictures I've ever seen.

As for Superman, every actor who's played the role stands in the shadow of Bud Collyer, who was Superman on radio, and who established the conventions that have influenced the way every other actor has approached the role in the years since.

 

[Fading Fast]

Allen is still hugely popular here -- every film of his that we get draws very well, and has for the eleven years I've been working here. We have a large contingent of his traditional core audience of New York baby boomers who live in this area, and they all turn out for any picture that his name on it. Every August or September he has one out, and every year they come to see it.

His early films, for my money, are his best. "Take The Money and Run" is still one of the most flat-footedly funny pictures I've ever seen.

As for Superman, every actor who's played the role stands in the shadow of Bud Collyer, who was Superman on radio, and who established the conventions that have influenced the way every other actor has approached the role in the years since.

I liked "Manhattan" and "Annie Hall," which are both, basically, not-good movies, but so New York of a time period that I love them. I haven't seen the earlier ones you talk about. Then, his movies sorta came and went and I might see one - like "Hannah and Her Sisters," another one I like for its New Yorkness, but is far from a great movie. I think I liked "Radio Days," but don't remember a thing about it.

But it seemed like he upped his game several years ago with "Match Point," a movie I outright enjoyed, and to a lesser extent with "Scoop" and "Vicky Christina Barcelona," but then slid back into whatever land after that. I liked "Midnight in Paris" for the time travel, but thought the story, acting and the movie overall was, at best, okay.

Lizzie, what did you think of Ben Affleck's portrayal of Reeves in "Hollywoodland?"

 

[Fading Fast]

"Argo" was another one with huge critical acclaim - they didn't stop carrying on about that one - and, I think, decent popular success that completely disappeared after its fifteen minutes of fame.

 

[Zombie_61]

...Another historical biopic, sort of, the 1960s talkie remake of "King of Kings," is even more difficult than the Keaton picture to watch today. It's impossible to ignore the fact that Jeffrey Hunter, whatever his skills as an actor, looks like a man who got no closer to the hills of Palestine than the other side of a pastrami sandwich at Chasen's.

Not that you're blaming Hunter for not looking Palestinian, but Christ had been "whitewashed" long before Hollywood got their hands on him. The Boys From Marketing have been around for a long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long, time.

I'm sure you guys know that when King of Kings was being made in the late fifties, Jeffrey Hunter was considered by many in the industry to be too young, lacking the gravitas required for the role. Hence it was waggishly referred to as "I Was A Teenage Jesus"!

And Hunter was 33 years old when the movie was filmed; probably-not-so-coincidentally the age Christ was when he died (presuming The Bible is the "history" book so many people seem to believe it is, that is).

 

[Worf]

His early films, for my money, are his best. "Take The Money and Run" is still one of the most flat-footedly funny pictures I've ever seen.

I think "Take the Money and Run" is one of the funniest films ever made. Right up there with "The Producers". The chain gain escape kills me every time. And you only have to mention "leather" and a crack up. Great movie.

Worf

 

[Fading Fast]

What's the thinking on "The Sting?" This was a huge hit when it came out. I remember my parents going to see it and them complaining about the long lines (back when most theaters were one or two screen affairs and the line queued outside not like today megaplexes). Now a days, it rarely shows up on TCM or other channels that play a lot of '70s movies, nor does it get much chatter.

 

[Doctor Strange]

It's an okay flick, but even seeing it in the movies when it was new, there was a sense that its reteaming of Paul Newman and Robert Redford didn't really recapture the Butch Cassidy magic. It was basically an okay caper picture stocked with enjoyable character actors, shot in a rather pedestrian manner with mediocre "thirties" stylization.

I was also personally annoyed at Marvin Hamlisch's (widely adored) use of the Scott Joplin piano rags on the soundtrack. Not only were these pieces too old to accurately invoke the thirties, but I was already a big fan (having discovered them for running along with my silent Super 8 films: Blackhawk prints of Chaplin/Keaton/Laurel & Hardy shorts) and I was already familiar with Joshua Rifkin's more sensitive, definitive recordings... Of course, the score won an Oscar and it began a brief Joplin boom that created millions of new fans of Joplin's music, so it was very good for Joplin's legacy in the long run even if I didn't care for it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think "Take the Money and Run" is one of the funniest films ever made. Right up there with "The Producers". The chain gain escape kills me every time. And you only have to mention "leather" and a crack up. Great movie.

Worf

The bit where he's locked in the sweatbox with an insurance salesman is one of the greatest gags ever put on film -- if ever anyone needed justification for calling Allen a comic genius, that would be it.

Another brilliant choice in that film is the use of Jackson Beck as the narrator. Beck up to then was best known as an announcer/narrator of kiddie-adventure radio shows, and he narrates "Take The Money" in exactly the same breathless but dead-earnest style as he used on "The Adventures of Superman." The resulting incongruity is hilarious.

Allen's early films are full of this kind of stuff, but by the eighties he'd evolved past that style -- to his detriment, in my opinion. I think the last picture he made to incorporate this type of absurdist comedy was "Zelig," which is a work of demented genius, especially for those with an appreciation for the popular culture of the Era. "You May Be Six People, But I Love You!"

 

[Benzadmiral]

What's the thinking on "The Sting?" This was a huge hit when it came out. I remember my parents going to see it and them complaining about the long lines (back when most theaters were one or two screen affairs and the line queued outside not like today megaplexes). Now a days, it rarely shows up on TCM or other channels that play a lot of '70s movies, nor does it get much chatter.

I remember overhearing some of my fellow drama majors discussing the recent Oscars, and one saying, "You can't tell me that The Sting is a truly American classic film, or worthy of an Oscar." So maybe there were people even in 1974-75 who weren't enormously impressed.

It's a clever caper/con artist story, a sort of Mission:Impossible tale * set in the Thirties. The moment that floors us all is the shooting -- to death, we think -- of Newman's and Redford's characters, followed by the revelation that it was part of the plot all along. On a second viewing, we see that another character we didn't pay much attention to had been in on the plot all along, just not shown to us as a member of the gang. Had we realized that, we might have known at the moment of the shooting that it was designed to fool Robert Shaw's character. And the surprise wouldn't have been there. Perfectly fair to do, in this kind of tale.

Except for Jaws and The Exorcist, I wonder if there are many Hollywood popular successes of that period that are still raved about in the same way.


* Remember that M:I wasn't all safecracking stories. A great number of their plots hinged on someone being conned or fooled into doing what Briggs/Phelps and his people wanted.

 

[Inkstainedwretch]

The Godfather came out just a year before The The Exorcist, so that's another early-70s classic. In fact, the period of 1967 (Bonnie & Clyde) and 1975 (Jaws) was a sort of mini-golden age that saw the debuts of directors like Spielberg, Coppola and Allen.

 

[Zombie_61]

I remember overhearing some of my fellow drama majors discussing the recent Oscars, and one saying, "You can't tell me that The Sting is a truly American classic film, or worthy of an Oscar." So maybe there were people even in 1974-75 who weren't enormously impressed...

You can select any movie from any era that was wildly popular, successful, and/or well-loved, and find someone out there who really doesn't like it. Entertainment media is subjective, and it's impossible to please 100% of the people who watch, listen to, or read a given project. I like The Sting, but find Edith Head's wardrobe designs to be just a little too stylized--a caricature of clothing worn in the 1930s rather than a faithful duplication--so that ruins my enjoyment a bit.

...Except for Jaws and The Exorcist, I wonder if there are many Hollywood popular successes of that period that are still raved about in the same way...

Well, there's that whole Star Wars thing that's still discussed with much reverence in certain circles...

 

[LizzieMaine]

It's interesting to look up the top-grossing films year-by-year thru the Era to see which ones have stuck and which ones have disappeared into the 2am time slots on TCM. Consider, for example, 1934 -- a pretty good year for pictures, all things considered. What was the top grossing film? "It Happened One Night?" "The Thin Man?" "The Gay Divorcee?" All pictures which are still well-known, at least among film buffs, to this day -- but none of those were the top grossers for the year.

No, the picture that had the most people beating feet to the box office was -- "Viva Villa," a ripe biopic about Pancho Villa starring that suave bandito himself, Wallace Beery. You may be excused for not having seen it. Not too many people have who don't stay up till 2am watching TCM.